Digital printing devices are used to produce hardcopy documents bearing any desired images based on electronic data. Examples of digital printing devices including, but are not limited to, printers, including laser and inkjet printers; plotters; commercial digital printing presses; fax machines; photocopy and digital copy machines; multifunction peripherals and similar devices
The images produced by such digital printing devices may be color images or may be black and white. Where color images are produced, the color images are typically created using a limited number of primary colors, for example, cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K). Using a technique referred to as “half-toning,” dots of these primary colors are blended on the printed document to produce a full-color image with hues across the entire visible spectrum.
The half-toning function of each particular printing device needs to be calibrated. This calibration ensures that the colors output by the printing device through half-toning actually match the colors desired for that document or the colors of an original document being copied. Other functions of a printing device may also need or benefit from calibration. The quality of the images produced will accordingly be highly dependent on the accuracy of the calibration of that printing device.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.